US free slave document marks 150 years
2012-12-31 13:41
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Washington - The document that freed slaves held in the
US South celebrates its 150th birthday on Tuesday, and to mark the occasion,
the National Archives has put it on display.
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation
Proclamation on 1 January 1863, declaring all slaves in Confederate
territories, the rebellious southern states, to be "forever free”.
The proclamation led to the ratification of the 13th
Amendment to the constitution in 1865, which legally ended the institution of
slavery across the US.
Several hundred people lined up Sunday in Washington to
view what the National Archives called "one of the great documents of
human freedom”.
Two of the original five pages of the document are on
display through Tuesday in a plexiglass case in the rotunda of the National
Archives buiding.
The tumultuous period in US history during which the
Emancipation Proclamation was written and signed is also the subject of the
current major motion picture Lincoln, starring Daniel Day Lewis, which has been
nominated for multiple awards.
Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, whose books provided the
basis for the movie and who collaborated in its production, said on NBC News on
Sunday that, philosophically, Lincoln always believed slavery was wrong.
The question he had to resolve, she said, was what power
did he have to abolish it.
The Emancipation Proclamation was not passed by Congress
but was a military order Lincoln issued as commander-in-chief of the US armed
forces.
It brought freedom to slaves in areas under the control
of Lincoln's Union army.
The National Archives is the nation's record keeper.
It also keeps original copies of the Magna Carta and the
Declaration of Independence.
The Emancipation Proclamation can be displayed only for a
limited time because of its fragility, which can worsen by exposure to light,
the archives said.
The archives is to cap its three-day display with a
public reading of the proclamation on Tuesday morning.
- SAPA
